The main current project is a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother. "Hey, Mom! Talking to my Mother" chronicles my ongoing conversation with my mother, an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2015). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.

Hey, Mom! The Explanation.

Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.

Friday, January 1, 2016

Weekly Comics for September 2014

Weekly Comics for September 2014SUBTITLED: What? Another MCOE?MCOE = Massive Cross Over Event

Hello, blog reader.

Those who regularly read my blog, all two of you, Hi.

Well, took me a long time to do this one, eh? I am leaving the subsequent text in which I discuss my new format, but it's not really relevant anymore.

I may be able to get back on the horse doing monthly updates of my comic book reading. But I have fifteen months worth of back log, which I plan to add to a single entry.

Watch me fly.

New format. The separate post for each week's worth of comics thing was not working. On April 19th 2015, I finished an entry for comics from August 27th 2014. That's quite a back log, especially when I work on the posts for a month each! It would take me years to catch up. Will anyone want to read about comics from September 2014 in the year 2018? I doubt it. Well, maybe as historic curiosity but hardly in line with pulse keeping of current popular culture. Sometimes I wonder if anyone in 2015 wants to read about comics in 2015.

Catching up on the week-to-week entries was proving to be pure insanity, and so I am switching to monthly posts, which still puts me EIGHT months behind at this writing (counting this post), but eight is a more manageable number than thirty-two, which is the number of weeks in eight months.

I did not start out in the vast blog-o-sphere set to write about comics books either weekly or monthly.
This exercise in writing about my comics as they arrive each week at the comic store and ranking of how I will read them started in my T-shirt blog at T-shirt #92- Mad Magazine shirt. I think it speaks to the evolution of my t-shirts blog that I wrote 90-some entries before the idea occurred to me to list my weekly comics stack in ranked order and write about the comics that I was purchasing each week. Much like the evolution of the blog, the first entry is a bit short and spartan. I reflect a bit on why I stack the comics as I have them, and revel in the purchase of the Galactus bottle opener magnet, which is still stuck to my refrigerator. Isn't it awesome?

As I hit my stride, like the evolution of the entire blog, I found time periodically to write HUGE entries if not completely about the comics for a given week, at least including them in part . For instance, a few weeks later, I included comics for the week in the massive and voluminous blog entry for T-shirt #119 - Doctor Strange, which, ironically, happens to be the T-shirt I am wearing right now, this minute, by total random chance You may ask: "so what? Of course, you chose this blog entry to write about. You're wearing the T-shirt." But no. This entry really demonstrates the evolution I am talking about. In T-shirt #119 - Doctor Strange, I created one of my longest and most involved blog entries in the entire year of T-shirt blog entries.

I even made a new Facebook friend in creating the blog. I tracked down Catherine Yronwode, who had done some very interesting fan writing about the "magic" that is featured in the Doctor Strange comics and published these writing to the Internet. Yronwode used to work at a comic company called Eclipse, which published some very good comics back in the late 1970s. 1980s, and early 1990s, such as Miracleman, Zot!, and The Rocketeer along with its manga branch, Viz, that published one of my all time favorite series: MAI THE PSYCHIC GIRL. In another one of those weird coincidences, I was just talking about Mai the Psychic Girl in a class today.

Anyway, the Doctor Strange entry may have been under construction for some time before it was complete. I employed two methods to complete entries. As much as was possible given my schedule, I would write ahead, but sometimes, I was forced to post an incomplete entry and keeping plugging away at it until I considered it be "finished." IN FACT, there are still SIX entries on the blog that I consider to be "unfinished."

This issue of the time involved in crafting blog entries is relevant to my current subject as I would often find myself deep down to rabbit hole in terms of content. Just scroll back through the blogs to see what I mean. Even when I tried to restrict myself to a series of reviews or even a one specific subject, my content would grow and grow and with it the length of time needed to complete the blog entry.

Well, no more. I am planning to do two things with each of these monthly entries. For one, I will write about the lists for each week and how they represent my reading patterns and current interests with comic books. Then I will select one issue or series to write about and keep my comments focused and brief. The goal is to catch up to the current month as quickly as possible. With that in mind, here we go on the first monthly posts and my two subjects.

The subtitle of this blog is "What? Another MCOE?" I coined the MCOE acronym for Massive Cross Over Event, which seems to happen a lot in the comic book industry, mainly the preoccupation of the big two companies: Marvel Comics and DC Comics.

The comic book companies did not always launch MCOEs. In fact, for many years comic book issues featured stand alone stories, so even the idea of the inter-locked, multi-issue story arc is a relatively new concept for story telling compared to the history of the genre.

A bit underwhelmed as I look back on this crossover from the first day of 2016 with 2015's big epic, Secret Wars, still not complete.

Secret Wars is a better crossover, but I am intrigued about how Marvel moved the original Nick Fury into a role as a new kind of Watcher, killed the former Watcher (Uatu), and now has moved in the movie version Nick Fury into that role.

However, I suspect that Uatu or another of his race will be back some day. It's comics after all.

I find it interesting that Uber took second place this week, which probably only happened because Aquaman and Grayson were not in the usual continuity and excellence, though I do love Uber. I am sad that Iron Fist: The Living Weapon #006 ranks so low, but art is a huge factor in this ranking, and that art is awful (Kaare Andrews).

***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Pretty much Fantastic Four always hits the top of my stack as it is arguably my all time favorite comic book. It unseats The Walking Dead, which had been taking top spots, and even claims my attention over Velvet and Lazarus both of which are FANTASTIC.

I am Christopher Tower the gmr

I am Christopher Tower (or Chris), and I am a writer of stuff. I live in Michigan. I play Ultimate, ride a bike, and supposedly educate college persons while myself being educated in college. I am married with two kids, a beagle, a curly lab, and a grouchy black cat. I like sushi. I love all SF, fantasy, comic books, D&D, board games, and Gnosticism. I am a Jungian. I am currently studying computer science at WMU.

Satchel

SENSE OF DOUBT STATUS AS OF 0705.04 - 16:45

Sense of Doubt is not currently dedicated to any themes or special interest. The subject matter is mine and may range from comic books to ultimate or from Baseball to feminist-centered media criticism. Until I feel I have enough content for multiple blogs, or until I am seized with a desire to create multiple blogs, this is it, and appropriately so. "Sense of Doubt" came about in Bowie’s Berlin period and the dark, ambient collaborations with Brian Eno. Like the Bowie of 1978, I have my own darkness that steals over me and through me, infecting everything. At the risk of sounding far too melodramatically obsessed with my own self-flagellations, this blog dedicates itself to that darkness, that infection. But it’s fun, too. Hey, I can be amusing? Or not. It’s the way of the [w]rench. Neurosis compelling action in insecure double-checking and misunderstanding evasions. It is my way.

More from the original description text that needed editing in 2015: Furthermore, Sense of Doubt is dedicated to the random. The theme is no theme. Just questions, doubt, and uncertainty. Feel the power of not knowing the answer. So dedicated on the last day of July 2006 by the Galactic Monkey Wrench.

The Blog about my job

It's about how my identity was taken from me by the powers that think they be, an identity, a job, I held for ten years. Go there if curious.

the galactic monkey wrench

The Galactic Monkey Wrench

This is the logo of the Galactic Monkey Wrench. I was given the nickname Galactic Monkey Wrench in college by a friend of mine who felt that I threw the monkey wrench into the cosmos at every available opportunity. Later, in discussions with my best friend, who isthe Lord of Chaos (the Loc), he asked for my title and when I told him, without thinking, he blurted out "the gmr!" Since this was random and we appreciate randomness, I became the gmr, even though technically I should be the gmw. But gmw sounds like a car or some industrial manufacturing firm that makes a strange widget of which one has never heard.
This acronym fetish may make no sense to anyone else, but my friend and I are quite driven to provide acronyms for many things. At the very least, it allows us to keep our conversations obscure and often private as no one knows about what we're talking.

Sense of Doubt Rare video

the gmrstudios repository of doubt

Christopher Tower's Facebook Posts

Monkey Wrench Books

This book is a little slower than the others. But if you become invested in this series, it provides key information about the history of Westeros and the lands across the Narrow Sea. It may not contain chapters with my favorite characters ...

Do I really need to review this book? It's one of the best books I have ever read. Martin is a great writer. All the books are great, and I am loving my time rereading them. If you have not checked out these books, start here and get ready ...

These books are immensely entertaining. Treat yourself to some strong writing, great action, compelling characters, and a mix of metaphysics and theology. The ending of this third book, which is presumably the last, is anti-climactic and so...

This was a fun book. Not OSC's best but very good OSC nonetheless. The best thing about is the time travel, slowing, and speeding powers of the characters and how OSC engages the reader in discussion of causality and time paradox. For fans ...

This book came to me via my wife Liesel who discovered it and urged me to read it. Beautifully written with compelling characters and a sense of the magical (yet realistic, somewhat). Funny yet full of the pathos that marks a good if not gr...